Monday, January 22, 2007

"Diamond"-coated gadgets

Portable gizmos such as phones, handheld computers and mp3 players can easily get scuffed, dirty and sticky.

Bulky covers are one option, but Nokia in Finland has been experimenting with plastic casings coated with a diamond-like material made from coal. The material is more protective and grime resistant, as well as cheap and bio-degradable.

To make the material electric current is fed through coal graphite. This creates plasma, which is directed towards a plastic casing by high-voltage electrodes. The coal ions penetrate the surface and bond to form an amorphous, diamond-like coating less than 100 nanometres thick. The process works at room temperature, meaning even cheap plastics can be coated this way.

The coating is very tough, but also smooth to the touch. It is also conductive and therefore antistatic, so does not attract dirt easily. Furthermore, the surface reflects and diffracts light in a similar way to shiny metal. And, when the owner has grown tired of the gismo and binned it, the thin layer of coal will eventually degrade naturally.

It is the dofus kamas which makes me very happy these days, my brother says kamas is his favorite games gold he likes, he usually buy dofus kamas to start his game and most of the time he will win the cheap kamas back and give me some dofus gold to play the game.